


Sing Songs

by Star_dancer54



Series: Dear god old stuff. Like, seriously old. [25]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death?, Folklore, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-11
Updated: 2005-09-11
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_dancer54/pseuds/Star_dancer54
Summary: "Ah, little ones. You know what time it is, I'm sorry to say. I'm also sorry that you're going to have to see this. I love you both dearly, but I can't stay any longer. I'm tired."





	Sing Songs

**Author's Note:**

> So let me preface this by saying one thing - I get inspiration from the STRANGEST places. The song mentioned in this is a slightly-changed song from, of all places, the Hank the Cowdog series. What can I say - I was impressionable.

"Ah, little ones. You know what time it is, I'm sorry to say. I'm also sorry that you're going to have to see this. I love you both dearly, but I can't stay any longer. I'm tired."

The old one lay in bed, grandchildren curled up around a withered and wizened body. They clutched at the old one, crying softly. A faint smile flickered across chapped lips, and the hoarse voice came again from the old one.

"I suppose I can at least tell you one last story, eh?" The once-sharp mind wandered before returning. "Not one of the stories you've heard before, hear me? Not how your grandparents met, or how your parents would squabble when they were children. No, this one is from before any of the others, back when I was barely seventeen."

/He came here in the springtime  
With flowers in his hair  
Inquiring for a place to stay  
Until the trees grew bare/

"It was the spring after I turned seventeen. My parents and I still owned the inn on top of the mountain, and it was such a beautiful spring that I was outside nearly all the time. I'd get called in to sweep the floors, or make up the beds, but would flit back out again right afterwards. It was one of those times that I happened to pause to speak with one of our lodgers, that I saw him."

The grandchildren stirred, still listening with soft eyes.

"He came in on one of the first days of spring. He wore a beautiful, simple kimono the color of pale lilac. He had the longest hair I had ever seen, far below his waist. Tangled in that long honeyed hair were dozens of tiny white flowers. He wanted a room for the spring, until the trees were as bare as they got."

/I saw him in the cottonwoods  
Beneath their pools of shade  
He caught a puff of cotton  
And blew it  
On its way/

"Well, I was a shy young thing at seventeen, but I would watch him whenever I got a chance. He would go out to the cottonwoods and sit under them for hours, catching the little puffs of cotton and releasing them as if they were fragile butterflies not meant to be kept. He was so beautiful when he was under there, and I remember wishing fervently that I had the talent that my mother had for catching images on paper."

The old one pauses in the narrative, and seemingly for no reason, sings softly while staring at a crystal rose on the nightstand.

"Oh  
Sing songs of sunshine  
Sing songs of rain  
Sing songs of springtime gone  
Sing them all again"

Tears come to faded eyes, but a gnarled hand wipes them away. A faint smile came to those ancient lips again.

"I think I fell in love with him."

/He stayed throughout the summer months  
I saw him having fun  
He took a golden strand of hair  
And wrapped it 'round the sun/

"Well, as I said, he stayed until autumn, as he'd wanted. And I watched him whenever I could. I think I worried my parents over my obsession with the stranger, but they never said anything about it to me."

"But I do remember one incident where he beckoned me close. That was how I knew that he'd known I had been watching him all this time. He pulled me close, wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and showed me a simple trick with an empty spool and a few strands of his hair. It was as if he'd spun the sun into those strands of honey, for it glowed."

/He warmed the earth  
And kissed its face  
With lips of sparkling dew  
I thought he'd stay forever  
His name I never knew/

"I knew the first time he kissed me that I was totally lost to him, and I don't regret it in any way. I never even knew his name, but I knew that we would stay together, for he was my soulmate. I knew that we would die without eachother. I was young, and deeply in love."

The grandchildren make soft noises of protest. They had believed that their grandparents were soulmates. The old one shook a white head.

/Oh  
Sing songs of sunshine  
Sing songs of rain  
Sing songs of springtime gone  
Sing them all again/

"He'd dance in the rain. And I'd watch him from within my home. He was so graceful, lithe like a dancer. His hair would whip around him and fly in the air like wings. It would break my heart to see him dance."

No comment was made about whether or not the grandparents were soulmates; there was no need, for the grandchildren could see in that well-loved face that that young man had totally bewitched the old one.

Faded eyes focussed again. "It was one storm late in the summer that he beckoned me again. This time out into the storm. He lifted a graceful hand and offered it to me. I could not help but join him in that gentle storm. We sought shelter under the cottonwoods, for their thick branches kept us safe. Relatively speaking. He pulled me close, I kissed him, and we made love under the cottonwoods in the middle of a storm."

Those tired eyes went hazy for a moment before returning to the crystal rose. "I was so certain that while he was over me and in me there were pipes playing. Those ancient wooden ones that are played at festivals..."

/The autumn came  
I heard the wind  
And saw the swirls of rain  
And cottonwoods with gnarled limbs  
Against a sky of lead/

"I fell asleep under the cottonwoods, but woke shortly after to find his beautiful kimono wrapped around me. I tugged it to cover my bare body and searched for him. I found him atop the small hill next to the meadow. He was totally bare, and staring at the sky."

/I called for him  
To warm himself  
And said that he must stay  
But all at once  
His eyes grew sad  
And then  
He went away/

"I called to him, worried he'd get cold. He turned towards me, but I couldn't speak for a second, because his eyes were filled with pain. I cried out to him, begging him to stay with me, that whatever it was that made his eyes so sad couldn't be that terrible. His eyes filled with tears. He looked like he was going to approach me, but before he could, he vanished into thin air. I raced to where he'd vanished, and found only this small crystal flower..."

Old hands grasped the delicate stem of the indigo rose, and the old one began to sing softly again.

"Oh  
Sing songs of sunshine  
Sing songs of rain  
Sing songs of springtime gone  
Sing them all again"

The old one waited for a moment, before tears filled those worn eyes. Without further ado, the crystal rose was flung away to shatter on the far wall.

As the old one buried the wrinkled face in wizened hands, a soft glow came from the corner the rose had shattered in. A willowy figure pulled itself from the glow and approached the figures on the bed.

/Woah  
Sing songs of sunshine  
Sing songs of rain  
Sing songs of springtime gone  
Sing them all again/

The old one uncovered the tired face and looked up in amazement as a beautiful youth stepped towards the bed. The youth smiled down at the grandchildren.

"I'm sorry, but it's time for your Grandfather to go."

The older one, a woman of thirty, nodded and released her grandfather's hand, patting it gently. She kissed his forehead, then pulled herself upright. She was crying, but smiling.

The younger of the two hugged his grandfather tightly then stood as well. He nodded at the youth, and the indigo-eyed youth nodded back.

"Take care of him." The twenty-year-old young man looked so much like his grandfather, and sounded like him as he spoke in a soft plea.

"I shall." The youth offered his hand to the old man, and he accepted it readily. The youth kissed his ancient lover's forehead, and the old one relaxed, finally free. The youth tugged on his mate's hand, and a young blue-eyed man of seventeen pulled himself out of the husk of his old body. He wrapped his still-strong arms tightly around the indigo-eyed youth, then turned to face his grandchildren.

"Take care of yourselves, little ones. Know that I love you very deeply."

With that, the indigo-eyed youth dragged his blue-eyed mate to and through the glowing light.

The light vanished, folding into a crystal rose, the color a blend of the two soulmates' eyes.


End file.
